Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-02-18
AT THE BOTTOM OF THE STRIKE.

At the bottom.of the collapsed strike in
New York, was socialism. 1t was an ex-
emplifcation of socialist maxim, when
all classes of workingmen were called upon
to cease earning wages, in order to aid the
cause of the few short-sighted who volun-
tarily quit work. This same principle
will next be heard from IN demand that
Government, as well as all workers, shall
aid such efforts. Indeed, when Assembly
"49" of the knights Of Labor called
meeting for the express purpose of de-
handing that the Federal Government
should seize all the coal mines in the land
and manage them " for the benefit of the
people," it was simply the voice of social
ism which recognizes no property right in
individuals whatever, and breaches that
the State as the chief absorbent of all per-
sonality, OF course the logic of the doc
trine would lead up TO the demand that
the State should take all business giving
employment to men, or contributing to
their needs. 1t is well, in the light of the
failure of the strike, to look beneath the
surface and ascertain what was its motive
force and who loosed the springs of its ac-
ton. 1t is clear that the great mass of the
strikers did not think deeply upon the sub
ject; they were used by designing men,
and these are unrelenting socialists, insist
ing upon the outrageous idea of the COM
plete, full and unlimited paternal char
acter of the State These men, who made
commerce of the discomfort of labor, and
aided it to magnify its wrongs, are not dis
Outraged by their present failure. They will
begin again; and having sown the seeds
of socialism they await their growth.
The people of the United States must
meet the monstrous doctrines Of these
disorganizers squarely, and not permit
them to corrupt the labor element of the
country. For the most part the preachers
of the doctrine of the absorbent power of
the State are foreigners, comparatively Of
recent importation, having no true concep
ton of Republic, and both unable and
unwilling to see in orderly society any
other than ruling power antagonistic to
the masses. These fellows must be taught
that here there is no ruling class; that the
people constitute the sovereign, and that
this sovereign is greater than imperial
authority, and rests upon a groundwork Of
inalienable personal rights, absorption of
which by the State would result in the
overthrow of the entire scheme Of govern
ment by the people, and the setting up in
its place of the rule of greed, passion and
the mob. An effective method of lessen
ing the influence of pernicious teachers of
this class is to bar the way against any
further immigration of the spawn of Euro
pean socialistic hot beds. We can better
afford to take European paupers and Grim
inals, the prostitutes and abandoned, whom
we now exclude, than receive any further
additions to the hordes of sleek, willy and
cold-blooded rascals whose sole mission is
to stir laboring men up to antagonism
against order, republican FORMS capital
and industry. We place an embargo upon
pests of disease, but the loathsome political
and moral contagion of the European So
cialist is thousand-fold more to be de-
spised and feared.